2012-02-03 - Rockbladet Interview
Dead by April was interviewed by Swedish web site Rockbladet.se (published on February 03, 2012). All members except Alexander participates in the interview. Main topic discussed was of the Eurovision Song Contest, Incomparable, musical background and Dead by April's sound. The interview was done by Jonas Lööw. Script : The interview was done in Swedish and is therefore translated into English. Q: I begin by asking who you are as individuals? Jimmie Strimell: Do we dare to tell that? No, but we are rather calm of us. When we get together and go out on our adventure we get rather childish, as you can see if you follow our Tour Diarys available on Youtube. I probably shouldn't go into on this too much, I think people should check out our Tour Diarys and decide for themselves how they perceive us as people. Q: Ok, so we leave the privacy and your personalities to your Tour Diary simply. But if we go into your musical career, instead, how has it been like? Which influences do you have? Jimmie Strimell: I started playing drums and guitar in Brown Sugar, a band that I started up with my childhood friends in 7th grade. At the beginning we played material of bands like Sepultura, Alice in Chains, Perl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, etc. Me and Ian Paolo who now plays drums in Lillasyster took turns playing the drums and guitar. We didn't just want to play one instrument, so instead of bitching about who would play what we exchanged on various songs. My influences when it comes to vocals and growls are Phil Anselmo from Pantera, Jens Kidman of Meshuggah, Max Cavalera of Sepultura, Justin Timberlake, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots and Layne Staley of Alice in Chains. Marcus Wesslén: I grew up in a Christian family who frequently visited the church, so usic has always been part of my life, so it seemed natural to continue simply. I played in bands since middle school, but it was not until high school that I decided to try to be a rock star and we are still working on it! I have so many influences that it's impossible to single out an individual, but it's all from Peter Jöback to Dark Funeral played in the headphones! Zandro Santiago: When my mom bought an acoustic guitar from a friend on the farm that he had purchased from his schizophrenic neighbor. I was 12 and started to play it like crazy. My background is in hard rock as a teenager. I loved Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera and Iron Maiden. Then it got very grunge, when the wave came; Alice In Chains are still favorites. At age 20 I started listening a lot on west coast rock and 80's rock; Toto, Van Halen and stuff. After that, I started singing seriously at the age of 25 onwards and I started to hear a lot of good singers. Chris Cornell, Gavin DeGraw, Backstreet Boys, Erik Hassle, Christian Walz, and bands like Carpark North and Muse. You could say that I am influenced by and like everything with good melodies and vocals. Pontus Hjelm: Briefly, I started as a songwriter in 2008. I am a multi-instrumentalist with Michael Jackson as a mentor and biggest influence. Q: Do you have any other interest in addition to the music? Jimmie Strimell: Oh yes, my children! Marcus Wesslén: I've been fly-fishing since very many years back, and if I didn't have music I would probably fish more! Zandro Santiago: I've played soccer most of my life and love to both play and watch. However, there is no time at all for playing anymore, so I'm mostly watching and then it's Real Madrid that counts! Then I practice a lot, a little gym and fitness. And I've trained a little MMA and krav maga, which is a kind of very crude self-defense. I love to train with the body and push it to the limit. Pontus Hjelm: I love travelling and see the world and its different attractions. Weight lifting is also a great interest! Q: Do you have a hidden talent that you dare to tell Rockbladetse readers? Zandro Santiago: I was really good at imitating Kurt Olsson when I was little. And I can speak almost fluent backwards! Marcus Wesslén: Would be fly fishing in that case. Jimmie Strimell: Back in the days I could spin a basketball on mt fingers for over 10 minutes. : Marcus and Zandro had to leave the interview, so I continued the interview with Jimmie and Pontus by starting to talk about how Dead by April once started. Q: How and when started Dead by April? Jimmie Strimell: It all started when I recorded a chorus idea with Pontus in his studio so I could show off my idea for my former band Nightrage, but my idea wasn't very popular. Nightrage found it too poppy and it wouln't fit into our sound. Pontus however liked my idea as hell and asked me if he could use the chorus and continue working on it. He had lot of awesome ideas in his head right away when I left the studio so I said of course "Yes!" I'd been nagging at Pontus for many years before that I wanted us to do something together. I had previously helped Pontus adding scream vocals on his songs. Pontus struggled to become a songwriter for several years before we started Dead by April and I was completely sold on his music, so when he asked me if he could use my chorus to create something I was very happy and excited! The other day Pontus called me up again and said he had finished the song now called Lost ''and this was in January 2007. '''Q: What's your basic philosophy of music in Dead by April?' Jimmie Strimell: Doing something completely new that has never been done before in the music world and to get people to open up a bit more when it comes to music. There's nothing wrong in mixing different styles of music into one song, and it really feels like we have succeeded. Q: How would you describe Dead by April's sound? How has it changed/evolved over the years? Jimmie Strimell: We play some type of popmetal/boyband. We're trying to create heavy metal and mix it with crazy melodic synths. We have also been influenced by the singing style used widely in boyband. We like that there are large contrasts in our songs and it feels good to be able to go from really heavy riffs with aggressive growl to then move on to a chorus with attractive melodies and velvety smooth boyband voice. The sound has probably become larger and wider now on the new album Incomparable, we have taken our sound and made it wider. Pontus has developed into a phenomenal songwriter, the melodies and the songs are stronger now than ever if you ask me. Q: The members of the band has changed quite a few times over the years. Pontus, you have previously chosen to leave the band but now again, you are very much involved in everything Dead by April are doing, what is it that makes you're not a regular member? Pontus Hjelm: It's a long story. Much is going on behind the scenes in a band and I think it is important that a band may retain its integrity there. However, I can say that our former guitarist wasn't especially popular. There were a lot of fights and discussions about the direction we would take as a band. He wanted it to be an "old school" metal band. There were many disagreements simply that ultimately depletes very much on the community which meant that I dropped out. Now the constellation is different and the possibility that I reunite with the band is very big. Jimmie Strimell: He's always been equally involved in writing music even though he hasn't been a member for a while. Who knows, maybe he will become a member again, we will go out with the desicion in connection with the Eurovision Song Contest. Q: You released your second album Incomparible last September. Again, Jimmie and Pontus are responsible for the writing of almost the entire album. Briefly, how was the produce of this album compared to the debut album? Pontus Hjelm: This album was clearly a tougher process. It looked good at first, Jacob Hellner as the main producer with me as co-producer. Everything went smoothly until it came to producing and recording vocals. There we had sharply different view on things and interpretations of how the bag would be tied together. In the end, the bands and my opinion won and I stand as the final producer of the album. Also the mixing process didn't went so well. On my recommendation we had to change the mixer to Peter Mansson, who I've worked with before. From there it was a very joyful results! Q: You're a band whose popularity is growing and growing beyond Sweden's borders. Which country would you say you are most popular in? Jimmie Strimell: We did our first headline tour in Europe recently and we noticed that we were just as popular in Germany and England as we are in Sweden We played on the same type of clubs as we do home in Sweden, so I suppose we are right now popular in Sweden, Germany and England. Q: We can continue to talk a bit about the touring life. What's the best thing with touring? Jimmie Strimell: Getting to see and meet all excited and crazy fans, it's completely overwhelming. Q: What's your best show done so far? Jimmie Strimell: I think Sonisphere 2011 in Stockholm was our best and most fun gig ever. Q: What's the most crazy thing has happened at one of your concerts? Jimmie Strimell: We've experienced those stuff now on the European tour. People climbing up on the stage throughout the gig and stagediving, headbanged with us on the stage. When we had like two songs left there were about 20 people on stage who sang in our microphones, headbanged like mad and stagedived; that's probably the craziest thing I've experienced live during my years as a touring musician. Q: What's your dream-arena to play? Jimmie Strimell: I've always dreamed of getting a chance to play at Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg, it would have felt quite sick cruel to play on the biggest stage in your hometown of Gothenburg. I would've been sick proudly ago. Q: Let's change the topic and talk about what happens in 2012. The immediate future is, of course all about the Eurovision Song Contest. Have you always been eager to set up in such a forum? It is after all very controversial in metal circles. Jimmie Strimell: I've never thought of being in the contest because it's not exactly a genre of music that we would normally fit into, but after the record company asked us if we would consider us to be there we pulled together a few meetings and talked us together on this and decided that we wanted to do it. We see no difference of playing the Eurovision Song Contest than to play on the usual festivals like Metaltown or similar. We think it's fun to play live in front of people and fans, and the fact that there are around 3 million TV viewers makes it more fun to perform. We don't go in with the attitude that we're going to compete and win the whole thing, we're doing this more as a fun thing. It feels awesome that we'll be the first band in history to play a heavy song and with growl vocals. It will be really fun to see how the reactions are after. Q: How have your fans reacted on your participation? Jimmie Strimell: Yes, many people have asked us if this is really true, no one has said anything negative about it so far as I know. Q: What's your goals with the competition? Jimmie Strimell: To give a killer show! Q: Aside from Eurovision, what's your plans for 2012? Jimmie Strimell: Right now we have nothing else planned than that we'll try to take us over to Texas to perform at the South at a really big festival where there are around 300 bands playing every day. There will also be a few different record labels there to watch us, so who knows? If we put on a good show there may be more dates in the U.S. this year and it feels like it's about time that we do it now. Q: Any other dates booked? Jimmie Strimell: No, not right now, but we will know more about it later in February. Q: As a conclusion, say something spontaneously from your heart to Rockbladets readers. Jimmie Strimell: Hi all readers, it would be fun if you look at us on 4/2 when we play in the Eurovision Song Contest, and we hope to see you in the spring and summer.